For years, insurance industry observers have been predicting that home telematics products would transform the insurance industry by forcing carriers to take on the role of damage preventer instead of just claims payer.
Insurers are still experimenting. But one company in particular — a Silicon Valley startup that launched in 2014 — is working to make sure that it will be the leading smart home product supplier to insurance carriers when that transformation finally happens.
In the past month, Roost Home Telematics of Sunnyvale, California has entered into partnerships with Centauri Insurance, Duck Creek Technologies, and Farmers Protective Mutual Insurance Co. to place its water-leak detectors into policyholders’ homes. In the past year, Roost has signed up USAA, Armed Forces Insurance, Gulf Stream Property and Casualty Insurance, and CFM Insurance, to name just a few.
Duck Creek Technologies formed a partnership with Roost last month so that the insurance carriers that use its claims administration products can receive the alerts sent by Roost water-leak and freeze detectors. Each carrier on its own will decide how to channel those alerts from the claims administrator to the policyholder, said Eddie Jones, vice president of strategy and alliances for Duck Creek.
Jones said the insurance industry is still in the experimental stage of its relationship with the Internet of Things, but Roost is offering a product that more and more carriers want to offer their policyholders. Jones said Duck Creek doesn’t form exclusive partnerships, but it hasn’t yet teamed up with any other smart home products supplier.
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